


How Rare And Beautiful It Is

by JaxxCapta



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Camping, F/F, Fluff, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:34:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21775774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaxxCapta/pseuds/JaxxCapta
Summary: Sometimes, you just gotta go where the road takes you.Even if the road is a trail of torn-up dirt and broken trees you find in the middle of a camping getaway to an almost untouched planet. Those are the fun roads, the ones that make Anode grin. And hey, sometimes there's cool stuff at the end of those roads, right?(A commission for one EK Green.)
Relationships: Anode/Lug (Transformers)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	How Rare And Beautiful It Is

Allegedly, camping was a great idea.

There were many key words there, each unlocking its own weird door, as far as Lug was concerned. 'Allegedly' spoke of things that were supposed to be true. 'Camping' would be something calm, peaceful, natural. 'Great' meant this was a net positive. 'Idea' kept things strictly in the theoretical.

As Anode stood tall, proud, and curious in the wide swathe of destroyed trees, Lug reaffirmed that the theoretical did not last long around these parts.

The treetops waved not far above Anode's head. What treetops remained, anyways. Many must have gone down when their fellows got knocked over, leaving a gradient of survivors from the sparse to the thick forest, plush with local flora. Whatever did this had to be big. Whatever did this had to be dangerous.

“So, what do you think did it?” Lug asked, disentangling herself from a particularly stubborn vine. She kicked a couple more times for good measure and swung her leg around a broken stump.

“I'm of two minds on it,” Anode announced, a grin breaking across her face. “Either some kind of really big creature, or a space ship.”

“Wouldn't a creature out doing _this_ be kind of... I don't know, angry?” Lug stood beside her conjunx, surveying the damage before them.

“Oh, abso- _lutely_ pissed. But there is always the chance we get lucky and it's a space ship. Campground and potential trinket cache, all in one!” Anode singsonged the end, and Lug couldn't help but sigh. She did love seeing how Anode's face lit up at the sight of some new treasure. Even if it was her job to carry it all. “Come on. It'll be fun.”

“We might die.”

“We might always die.” Anode elbowed her. “Let's live a little first, right?”

Lug couldn't say no to that logic. Not this time. Maybe some other time.

But there was a certain pleasant peace to walking through the trail, watching for any clues about what happened. The wind hushed through the trees, a pleasant white noise, organic static. Creatures called and sang, their voices cutting through the rhythm of the breeze and their steps. Time didn't so much slow or fade away as found its own, natural pace about things. It knew when it needed to be, and that was all that mattered, whether or not the sentient beings that had formed around it dared to try and measure it or not.

Footsteps proved a negative. At least, in terms of the sorts of footsteps attached to a creature that could crash around like this. Small ones abounded, and from time to time Anode or Lug would point out some tracks to the other, the two getting pictures and promising to look up what could have made these tiny little impressions when they returned to civilization. Would the creatures be cute? They hoped so.

At the rate they went, the sun had grown not quite low, but warm gold washed over the world nonetheless, by the time they found the culprit.

It was a ship. Anode had been right. Well, right enough.

Wasn't a great ship, not any more. Its wedge of a body had halfway jammed, halfway crumpled into the ground. There wasn't any smoke, so Lug figured it couldn't be _too_ new a wreck. Anyone in there, their fates had been decided by now, and that was a problem between them and Primus.

Of course Anode saw the place and went jogging right for it, her chassis clunking with every overexcited step. There could have been traps, or other scavengers, or even just the classic damaged architecture that tended to come with hitting the ground hard enough to leave a small crater, but that did not matter. What mattered was there might be shinies inside, and even better, there might be _fun._

...All right. There might be fun.

Lug ran, catching up to her love. The two clambered up the ship's side to reach the boarding ladder, shaken loose from the impact she guessed. She was too caught up in the moment to slow down, even as their ex-vents grew harder from the speed and tenacity they climbed up and into the broken ship with. There would be something there, something that would make Anode (and her, she loved to see Anode's sheer delight over their finds) light up with curiosity and joy. She'd not miss it for the world.

The lighting inside revealed almost nothing, but their vents and pedesteps did not echo, so it couldn't have been too wide open of a space. At least, it would be full of wreckage and junk if nothing else. Flashlights turned on, the two illuminated a small room, cramped with crunched hull and ship-guts all over. The crash had crunched the front of the ship, badly enough its effects rippled through well into its midsection, so it seemed. Maybe it was one of those ships made to crunch up instead of letting its occupants take the full impact. If so, it was likely more on the pre-war side of things, or from a neutral planet that did not care at all about the fighting going on. (Lug quite liked those planets. There were plenty of other places where the misery of all the fighting hung heavy. She didn't need that in her life.)

“Well,” Anode said, setting her hands on her hips while her cooling systems caught up to lower her core temperature, “Where should we start?”

“There's only one exit.” Lug pointed down the hallway. Wreckage covered its floor, but that was navigable.

“Let's get going, then!” Anode held out a hand for Lug to take, their fingers interweaving as they navigated the junk all over the floor. None of the stuff here was all that good, but there was a whole ship to explore. Provided nothing got... explodey. Or full of residents who hadn't fled or died when the ship crashed. How wild would that be, finding someone inhabiting a ship like this? Just living here like it was totally normal to make a house out of a non-functional ship in the middle of some forest on a planet very few people had ever heard of.

The ship did indeed prove to be rich with, if not vast treasures or defensive inhabitants (treasure would have been pretty cool, a lack of defensive inhabitants was a pretty sweet deal), fun things to poke at. There was no sign of corpses, which was also nice. Lug's tanks churned at the idea of finding a dead body, but whoever was involved in this must have been able to walk away. Benefit of those crunchy ships, she supposed. They crunched, you didn't. Maybe whoever had been in this called for backup and got off the planet, leaving the ship for others to find and explore.

“Lug! Come look at this!” Others like Anode. Who, it seemed, had found some broken thing, thrown against the wall from the impact and fallen on the floor.

Lug approached, peering at the item as Anode held it down to her height. Oh, huh. It was a little decoration, its springs bent and twisted, its body broken, but the alien bauble did its best to, well, bobble and wobble back and forth as Anode shook it about, and poked it, prompting it to move in any way she could think of. Anything that could get some new, intriguing result out of it, right? She did so love to find those kinds of things. Lug had a small collection of videos of Anode proudly displaying something she got her newest find to do.

“Ooh. Neat.” Lug gave it a few experimental pokes and prods of her own. She didn't recognize the script written on its base, but she committed the image of it to memory. When they got back to civilization, she would try and translate it. Maybe she'd get lucky, and it would turn out to be some kind of media thing, and they could have another date night where they cuddled together and watched as much of the show or what have you as they were willing to take. She filed the thought away, to return to after the camping trip, after they were done exploring the ship.

The bridge was only their first stop. The ship was not some huge, monstrous thing, so there wasn't too much to check out, but each room needed time to fully appreciate. Well, first off was getting through the debris, but after that was the appreciation stage. There was not much left on the ship – maybe whoever had crashed took the time to take what was truly valuable, at least to them – but the process of searching, the idea of finding something and showing it to each other, that made the search worthwhile. And sometimes it paid off! Besides Anode's bauble, they came across widgets, gizmos, and random junk that looked neat aplenty. Almost all of it they put back; there wasn't much use for most of it, and they were traveling light for this trip. If they really wanted it, that could be a later Lug and Anode problem.

By the time they emerged, stars glittered high above, uninterrupted by any city lights or swarming satellites and stations. That was the nice part of these middle-of-nowhere places. Once you got through the rush, being somewhere with only each other, finding things like that ship, the breadth of the world, it was nice. Quiet.

Lug sat beside Anode with a loud sigh. The grass was already a little damp under her chassis; with an impish grin, Anode swiped a finger through it so her finger was all cold and wet when she and poked Lug's cheek, laughing at Lug's surprised shriek.

“You!” Lug patted her hands in the grass and flipped to straddle Anode's knees, clasping her waist. Anode squawked, jolting at the sensation. She wiggled and gave Lug a playful shove, unable to get her off her knees.

“You started it! You started it!” Lug's call echoed through the air and trees, privy only to her, Anode, and nature itself.

“Yeah? And I'll end it!” With a grin Anode pushed up onto her knees, sending Lug backwards into the grass. She pounced, the two's laughter carrying on the wind.

Time didn't matter as the two swiped each other with grassy, damp hands, sometimes being so polite as to preface with “Hey, feel how cold I am.” The planet could have turned on and on for however long it wished, as far as Lug cared. So long as she got to spend that time with Anode.

When the two finally rolled to a stop, ex-venting and staring up at the deep dark sky, Lug's mind tumbled with other moments like this. A walk in a city, the streets damp and neon-lit, huddling together and darting between shop awnings to avoid the constant drizzle, giggling as they dared each other to splash in the puddles. Joking about settling down to run a farm, of some sort. Didn't even have to raise anything from Cybertron, maybe they'd just do all sorts of organic things and sell them all, or learn all those foodcrafts organics got so obsessive about. Fermenting stuff would be a cool science experiment, right? And they'd have an excuse to foist the results off on other people.

“Hey,” Anode said between pants, “We didn't die.”

Lug stuck out her glossa. “This time, we didn't.”

“We've got a pretty good track record thus far.”

“Yeah. I guess we do.” Lug's expression faded into a smile and she settled back down, one hand on her torso, the other behind her head. They really ought to set up their supplies, she hadn't stashed them in subspace for nothing. But... but for now, they could use a break. It had been a busy day, chasing after whatever looked exciting in that moment. You needed time, to wind down and process it all.

An arm wedged under her shoulders, pulling her up against Anode's side. She shut her eyes, leaning her head against Anode's chest, ex-venting slowly. She was warm, pleasantly so. Maybe she'd just take a little more time, enjoy the moment. Then they could set everything up.

Allegedly, camping was a good idea.

Maybe Lug would drop the qualifier.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since the Art For Freedom fundraiser, and I thank EK Green for their patience! It's been really fun learning more about these two's stories and personalities, and coming up with something fun for them to do.


End file.
